Yesterday, we got confirmation that the bootloader on the AT&T Galaxy S 4 was locked, and rumors suggested similar fates for the phone on other carriers. While not everyone is even going to care about a thing like a locked bootloader, those of you who love tricking-out your phones with custom ROMs were no doubt a little bummed. That’s why we’re glad to see that progress is already being made to free these phones from their chains, with evidence arriving of a bootloader hack.

Noted Android hacker Dan Rosenberg posted the above picture to his Twitter account, which sure enough, appears to show that he’s compromised the bootloader’s integrity. While it’s not mentioned in that tweet, other sites report hearing from their contacts that this attack could be possible on “all locked versions” of the GS4.

Now, we still don’t know how close this exploit might be towards becoming an easy-to-use tool ready for public distribution, or even if that’s what Rosenberg has in mind for his work, but dang it if this doesn’t have us cautiously optimistic for the future of development work on the Galaxy S 4.